What do you think about Right to Work? (Fort Wayne: bankruptcy, university)

[fallingwater]

Originally Posted by Gunluvver2

I suspect that $50/hour number was the hourly wage plus the cost of things like: health insurance, workmens comp, unemployment insurance, Social Security matches, etc. Your pay stub doesn't list all of these other expenses that your boss pays out of his pocket. You benefit from all of these but the BOSS pays.

GL2

Right and some of those things the BOSS pays are required by law. Nice try.

[fallingwater]

Originally Posted by Toxic Toast

Hold the phone.

I know more than a few union folks who have made concession after concession because GM was performing so poorly. The unions are not bringing GM to its knees; bad management and poor products have done that. Ford did not take any bailout money, and is doing just fine.

Exactly. I also find it amusing that people that try to say that Detroit's downfall was related purely to the unions. Detroit's demise is due to government corruption.

[grmasterb]

Originally Posted by hindsight2020

Americans, particularly those in the center of the Country, have always had this fascination with supporting political entities that lobby against the economic self-interest of the very people supporting them, under the auspices that "if I agree with my boss, I can one day be in his shoes". Only in America....Right to work, for peanuts... yep,sound about right. This will all come to a head in 20 years when the preponderance of people attempting to retire are not of the Boomer flavor and that discourse [retirement] is not monopolized by boomers who largely escaped the bullet as a generation. Then these new workers will start cryin' uncle and broken social contracts, little too late. It all comes to a head folks.....

This would sound great if it weren't for the fact that wages, salaries and benefits are very good in many non-union industries.

[jman07]

Found a good paper on Right-To-Work Laws
[url=http://right-to-work-laws.johnwcooper.com/]Effects of Right to Work Laws on Employees, Unions, and Businesses[/url]


"Concrete data does support proponents of RTW’s claim that Right to Work states have higher productivity. For example, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s 2001 study found that the unit-labor costs (which is labor compensation / labor productivity) were “93.2 in Right to Work states and 98.1 in non-RTW states in 2000. Michigan, at 109.2, had the second highest unit labor costs in the nation”

"On a nominal basis, wages are lower in Right to Work states, but proponents argue, and this paper confirms, that once the above statistic is adjusted for cost of living, real spending power is at least the same and perhaps higher in Right to Work states. For example, when the National Institute for Labor Relations Research used The Economist Magazine’s data to adjust the poverty rate in 2001 for cost of living they found that this adjusted rate was 10.8% in states with Right to Work laws as compared to 12.9% for non-RTW states (“Independent Study”)."

"According to The Industrial Outlook (2003) all new auto plants built in the United States in the last 10 years were built in Right to Work states (Warden). Their findings were not just for 1 or 2 plants, but for a substantial 6 plants. (Nissan in TN & MS, Mercedes-Benz in AL, BMW in SC, Honda in AL, Hyundai in AL, and Mercedes-Benz in GA). Given the fact that only 22 out of 50 states have Right to Work laws, it appears unlikely that all 6 plants were located in Right to Work states due to chance alone. Therefore, it appears as if foreign automakers may be using a state’s Right to Work law status as a factor in determining plant site selection. "

"Holmes 1998 study examined changes in the levels of manufacturing activity when one crosses state lines between Right to Work and non-RTW states. He found that “relative manufacturing employment declines by one-third as one moves from within 25 miles of the border in the Right to Work state to within 25 miles of the border in the non-RTW state” (Wilson). He also found that ”eight of the 10 states with the highest manufacturing employment growth rates are [RTW] states. All 10 states with the lowest growth rates are not [RTW] states”

[IndyBound75]

Originally Posted by cleoT

I have personal experience, so I'll put my two cents in.

My husband worked in a S. Indiana power plant for three years in a specififed department. When one of their power plants was sold to the manufacturer and the manufacturer decided to outsource the jobs, my husband, being the man with the least seniority, and two others in his department, were laid off.

A couple months later he took the exact same position in a power plant in Texas, starting pay was nearly double what he made in Indiana. The only difference was that the department he worked in at the power plant in Texas was non-union and the one in Indiana was.

Fast foward ten years. We've been back in Indiana three years. My husband took a job back home in a similar field, but after several years, decided his heart was still in the power plant industry. Seeing an opportunity to get in with a power plant close to home, he chose to take a cut in pay (exactly half, at least for the nine month probation). Now, he makes what he made ten years ago in the exact same position.

Even though his boss tells him he knows more about their department then his co-workers and even his two bosses (not only does my husband have a related degree, but he chose to serve on every committee he could to learn more about everything about his job), and even though he's received accolades of monetary reward from the power plant manager twice for saving them from one near-disaster and one descrepency with EPA reports, his pay must reflect starting level because of the contract between company and union. So, basically, he's getting screwed and the company is benifiting from him, because of the union agreement.

I grew up in a two-union-working-parent household. I have lived and breathed union all my life, the benefits and the detriments. And I have had the good fortune to be able to personally live the differences (and they aren't all monetary) between a right-to-work state/company, and a company forced to hire union workers and make certain that everyone is treated the same, no matter their experience or knowledge. Personally, I'll take the right-to-work situation every time, because my husband was able to negotiate his salary right off the bat, his probation wasn't nine months (ack!!), and his opportunities abounded in the TX plant.

You may ask, then why did he choose to take this position/cut in pay? Because he knows his ability, and no union can put a cap on that. He'll advance in spite of his limits at present. I've seen too many people within the union who decide the union will choose their limits because it's just easier.

Does this mean right-to-work is perfect. Absolutely not. There are so many other factors. However, right-to-work means, in a society where, as one poster stated, most union efforts are now law, the individual employee can have so much more say in his/her working experience/career. And we all deserve that.

My humble, yet experienced, opinion.

At first, when I heard about Indiana following suit of Wisconsin, I freaked because I am going back to school to be an educator, and I want to relocate to Indiana to teach. I saw the hype that the media worked up about unions, and they made it sound unfair that the unions should be eliminated. Now that I read this real life example of someone being around a union all of their lives, maybe being a teacher will not be as bad if their is no more "union". I am not teaching for the money anyway; I am teaching to make a difference.

[grmasterb]

Originally Posted by jman07

"According to The Industrial Outlook (2003) all new auto plants built in the United States in the last 10 years were built in Right to Work states (Warden). Their findings were not just for 1 or 2 plants, but for a substantial 6 plants. (Nissan in TN & MS, Mercedes-Benz in AL, BMW in SC, Honda in AL, Hyundai in AL, and Mercedes-Benz in GA). Given the fact that only 22 out of 50 states have Right to Work laws, it appears unlikely that all 6 plants were located in Right to Work states due to chance alone. Therefore, it appears as if foreign automakers may be using a state’s Right to Work law status as a factor in determining plant site selection. "

And then there's the Honda plant in Greensburg......

[Broadrippleguy]

Originally Posted by grmasterb

And then there's the Honda plant in Greensburg......

Still not unionized though.

[Toxic Toast]

Originally Posted by Broadrippleguy

Still not unionized though.

I am guessing the point is that Honda opened a factory in a state that, at the time, is not a right to work state. A fact that was left out of jman's article.

[jman07]

Originally Posted by Toxic Toast

I am guessing the point is that Honda opened a factory in a state that, at the time, is not a right to work state. A fact that was left out of jman's article.

The article wasn't updated to include the year the plant was built. Still some sobering statistics.

[Toxic Toast]

Originally Posted by jman07

The article wasn't updated to include the year the plant was built. Still some sobering statistics.

Not really. On your own admission the info is dated quite a bit, so much that one local example that contradicts the info is excluded.